


The Fort

by hiiimaugust



Series: Kitty the Cowardly Courier [7]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Racism, Implied/Referenced Rape, The Legion are dicks but you already know that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-15 21:10:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9257390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiiimaugust/pseuds/hiiimaugust
Summary: The first time, Kitty is a coward and goes to the Fort alone. The second time, she brings along a friend. Both trips are abadidea.





	1. First Trip

The first time Kitty entered the camp on Fortification Hill she went alone. Stripped of everything besides her her clothesa, switchblade, and the damned mark, she felt exposed. The men's eyes followed her. It reminded her of Rex digging into a mole rat carcass. She tried to ignore it. Without Boone at her back or a Stealth Boy on wrist, she was a coward.

Images of Nipton and Nelson warred for her attention. Terror bubbled through her. Squashing it, she trekked up the hill to Caesar's tent. A guard lifted the flap. It took all her courage to walk slowly forward instead of running back. When she saw Benny, alive, she froze.

He nodded slightly in Caesar's direction, as if to say, "I'm not the focus here." His guard cuffed him along the side of the head.

"Don’t worry, girl," Vulpes Inculta said in his soothing-but-also-not voice. "He won't hurt you here." They thought she was frightened of Benny, not _for_ him. Not absurd, assuming that no one knew what they were up to couple nights ago.

She turned away and walked the last couple of steps. Vulpes Inculta's gaze burned the side of her head. Why he would attempt to soothe someone he considered little more than a child was beyond her, without factoring her gender. Counting her gender, well, she tried not think about how he _should_ be treating her.

Caesar's tone sounded downright casual. She jumped when he joked about killing her. Despite her thoughts of Nipton (or perhaps because of them) she forced out polite, affirmative, answers. She pulled off the diphthong in his title as well. He dismissed her.

She sat cross legged across from him. "Caesar says I have to choose how you die."

"Keturah." The way he whispered her real name made her smile. "Before you decide, I want to know a few things."

"Shoot."

"How long you been clean?"

She'd kill right there if her hands would stop shaking. He read like one of her fucking books. First her lack of sexual history and now her Med-X addiction. The man could be a detective. "Three months."

"That another gift from me?"

She nodded and looked nervously at the watching guards. Her orders didn't forbid being kind.

"What does the F stand for?"

"Frances." Part of her can't believe she's doing this, but they _did_ have sex. It couldn't get anymore embarrassing. "Benny, what should I do next?"

"Do whatever House would have wanted you to do down in that bunker and then find Yes Man. Yes Man will tell you what to do."

"You--you're serious? You're telling me what your plans were?"

"A man's gotta have a legacy, Keturah baby, you dig?"

Kitty knew she shouldn't have done it, but she took his face in her hands and kissed him. "I'm sorry, Benny."

"Shame this place doesn't allow conjugal visits."

She sighed. She didn't love Benny but she could see herself liking him. Unfortunately, that wasn't going to happen. She'd be more likely to become a slave than to have one. "Benny."

"Be brave, Pussycat."

She kissed him again and got to her feet. Then, she went into the bunker. Upgrading the Secruitrons and getting past security proved to be the perfect use for her skill set. Hacking one of the security terminals took so long, it almost gave her radiation poisoning. She came out of the bunker feeling faintly ill.

Caesar was none the wiser but not even her alleged obedience could convince him to let Benny go. "You got to work on bloodthirstiness. If you can't decide, we'll just crucify him. He still dies. We won't speak again until Benny's dead. "

Vulpes Inculta ordered her to rest, make her decision in the morning. She didn't sleep, too worried that some of the Legionaries would take _liberties_. After a few hours of staring at the top of a tent, Boone's words about what the Legion did to women and the radiation rolling her stomach, she decided to sneak around. Maybe she could get both Benny and her pathetic ass out.

Before she could get close enough to enter the tent, she overhead Vulpes say her name. Not Kitty, not Hastings, not even Courier. _Keturah_. "She needs to be taught a woman's place within the Legion, my Lord," he says smoothly. "All I request is a few days with her before you send her to kill House."

The racial slur Caesar slipped into vulgar reply made her realize something she should have noticed much earlier. The Legion did not have any black people, not even for slaves. She was black, and not on the light side of the race.

"I'm fucked," she whispered.

"I do not mean to impregnate her, my Lord. I want to know what she will be doing after your tasks for her are complete. Why would I mix my seed with something so vile? Leave that to the men who can't control themselves."

She quickly made her way back to the tent.

She didn't how she convinced what's-his-face with the raft to take her back to Cottonwood Cove at sunrise. The hike to Nelson, then Novac, was likewise a blur. She closed the door to her room, shaking. One dose of RadAway, and then some proper sleep where her only thoughts. Until she opened the first aid kit in the bathroom. Two needles of Med-X rolled onto the floor.

The world narrowed.

"Hastings, I will drag your scrawny ass to Freeside if you pick those up."

Boone, of course. "You're not going to go kill me for making friendly with the Legion?"

"Saw you come into town, looking like a ghost. Figured it didn't go well."

"Apparently I'm not even worth having children with." She tried to laugh but it came out closer to a sob. "I don't know what I was expecting."

Boone just stood there.

"Go on, say it." She couldn't look at him.

"I got nothing to say besides 'when do we storm the place?'"


	2. Second Trip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm one of those cruel writers who refuse to use archive warnings, apparently.

The second trip to Fortification Hill turned into a blood bath. Kitty didn't like violence but it was necessary. Boone took most of them out (she swore everyone in the Mojave was a better shot than her) but she killed enough that she doubted she'd be able to add them to the counter on her Pip Boy.

She knocked a blacksmith to the ground and shot him twice in the head. A small group that was using the arena for cover got friendly with a plasma grenade. Blood, innards, limbs and green goo went everywhere. She got in a bit of a tricky situation with two mongrels, but both went down. Boone, kneeling some distance behind her, took down man and beast alike.

Then, almost as quickly as started, the camp was silent.

The terror bubbled again. Kitty looked up at Caesar's tent. "Boone, if we go in that tent, we better hope to hell they die or we die."

He didn't answer.

Although she would never tell Veronica, Kitty hated powerfists. She hated them with a fiery passion worthy of the midday Mojave sun. Her ribs burned with every breath as she and Boone stared down the last man standing. Vulpes Inculta lunged at Boone.

Boone went down.

"Boone!" Kitty screamed. Fear gripped her, making it impossible to move.

Vulpes Inculta straightened and stepped away from Boone. Then, in the same vexing tone he used in English, explained what was about to happen entirely in Latin. Turned out he didn't have the aversion to her skin tone he claimed. Most of was about how her behavior wasn't her fault, but a result of brain trauma. How she would be forgiven, if she put down her weapon and submitted. He could guide her, mold her. Nothing he said was threatening on the surface. Still, she stepped back when he reached for her.

Then, to her complete surprise, bullet after bullet after bullet flew into his brain. An entire magazine of nine mils.

Benny, clearly worse for wear, stood on unsteady feet. "Keep your hands off my dame."

"You're alive!"

"Hey, Pussycat. You dropped a bobby pin. You can thank me later."

"How the fuck did you use a bobby pin to get out of ropes?" The conversation was stopped by a groan from Boone. Kitty dropped to her knees beside her partner.

A ripper to the gut did not bode well. She could be a decent medic if the need arose but there was no way she could get him stable enough to move. She was injured herself and he had other injures. Her body shook from exertion.

"Don't you dare die on me, Craig. Don't you dare." His eyes were already unfocused. He didn't respond to her words. His breaths weren't affective. The world seemed to slow around them, Benny and the Legion corpses forgotten. "I know this how you'd want to go but damn it. What am I supposed to do without you?"

She struggled to get his insides back inside. Maybe with enough improvised bandages...

Benny's mostly clean hand took hold of her bloody wrist. He pulled her away from the wound. "Honey baby, he's not going to make it."

She shook.

"I have two bullets left," he whispered.

"He--he doesn't believe in mercy killing."

"I wasn't asking for your permission. Close your eyes, honey baby."

She shook her head. "Please, Benny, don't."

She closed her eyes anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to apologize. Also cry. Why do this to myself and then force it on other people?


End file.
